New highway safety survey asks drivers if they drive drunk, speed, use cell phones on the road

State officials want to know if you drive drunk, wear your seat belt, speed or talk on your cell phone while driving — and how likely you think it is that you'll get caught doing it.

PennDOT is asking drivers to voluntarily take an anonymous 17-question survey they say will help them focus their resources better. The survey is also a new, annual requirement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that directs federal highway safety dollars to states.

Responses to the survey, which is open through July 30, will supplement crash report data and DUI arrest data that PennDOT already uses when deciding how and where to spend its federal money to make highways safer, said Alison Wenger, a spokeswoman for the department.

"Crash data can't really be manipulated, so we look at that as being the best indicator," Wenger said. The survey will help narrow down focus areas, geographically target problems and flesh out the picture painted by hard data, she said.

"We're hoping people understand it's anonymous, so we're not tracking anyone's personal responses," she said. "We're really hoping that for as many concerns as we hear from people all the time about highway safety, they'll feel like they're helping to protect themselves when they're out on our roads. "

Peter Crabb, a psychology professor at Penn State University who studies privacy issues, said the potential to track answers back to an individuals computer exists, but would be unlikely because it could easily lead to a lawsuit.

Crabb said that he personally would not fill out the survey because its "invasive" but that he would not feel anyone who does complete it is at risk.

The survey method also raised questions as to how valuable the data will be to state officials. Because the survey relies on people to voluntarily go online and answer questions, there's a bias toward not responding to the survey, said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor and director of the polling institute at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

He said the responses could be useful to officials in how to allocate money, as long as they aren't the primary tool used to make decisions.

"I have little problem with people being candid and reflective ... and there is an argument that people are more candid online than face to face," Madonna said. "But this polling method creates self-selection, so you can't generalize to all Pennsylvania drivers because they weren't sampled at random."

Featured Story

Get 'Today's Front Page' in your inbox

This newsletter is sent every morning at 6 a.m. and includes the morning's top stories, a full list of obituaries, links to comics and puzzles and the most recent news, sports and entertainment headlines.

optionalCheck here if you do not want to receive additional email offers and information.See our privacy policy

Thank you for signing up for 'Today's Front Page'

To view and subscribe to any of our other newsletters, please click here.